Editing Prep

So it's generally agreed on by everyone I've ever asked (including myself, because I love taking breaks) that once finishing a piece you should let it sit for a while. So that's what I'm doing now.

I've decided that I'm going to start editing Saturday, which I know isn't that long at all, and probably not long enough, but I'm seriously trying to get the editing done by graduation-June 25th. Mainly because I want to ask one of my teachers to look at it when I'm done with my own edits. This shouldn't be a problem, seeing as the first draft totals 413 Word pages and I haven't seen the first two thirds of it in months and months. I plan on starting at the beginning and editing as I go, so by the time I get to recent stuff it will have been a few weeks anyway.

In the meantime it's been really strange not having to write. For the past year and a half I've constantly had this thing hanging over me- I've gone home almost every day and said "I should write x amount tonight". Even when I didn't actually write, it was always there, and I didn't realize what a big part of my life it was. I came home from school Monday and realized I literally had nothing to do (I didn't have homework either) and it was shocking. Shocking in a good way, I mean. I feel like I have so much free time now. This feeling of freedom isn't because I didn't like writing of course, and is mostly an illusion, but I do like it.

Now that I seem to have so much free time (at least for this week) I've also found that I cannot exist without a project. Or at least not anymore, now that I'm used to it. So I've created a to-do list that I actually plan on finishing by Saturday, filled with things I've been forever meaning to get done.

I've also not been able to fully let go of my story. Or should I say manuscript, now? (I'm so excited, now that I can rightly call it that!) I haven't touched the thing or even looked at it, and I won't until Saturday, but I've set about learning as much as I can about editing from the internet. I've found a lot of helpful information, and taken notes, since apparently I need to be documenting something. One thing I've found is different editing methods, which I'll share with you briefly.

There's of course the "Read-Through" method, which was my original plan, where you read through the manuscript slowly and make writing/plot/etc changes as you go, then rinse and repeat until all that's fixed and do one last read-through for grammar and punctuation and things.

Another method (used by Veronica Roth, as I learned this from one of her own blog posts) is what I'm going to call "Giant List of Doom Editing". She reads through the entire manuscript quickly and compiles a Giant List of all the problems with it, then separates the list into Global and Local problems and possible solutions, and applies the edits to her manuscript in sections. She also used this program called Scrivener, which I really really want to try now.

The Giant List of Doom method is really appealing to me, but since I don't want to see the last bits of my manuscript for a bit longer I don't think I'll use it. I would also have a problem with the second part of her method, which is applying edits by section, as my manuscript technically only has three chapters- the prologue(4 pages), Chapter One(6 pages) and Chapter Two(403 pages). This is because I stopped seeing the natural breaks in the story as I wrote and was really paranoid about making chapters too short, so I left that mess for myself in editing. Thank you, Past Me. It's making the thought of editing really daunting because I just have this monstrosity of a document to look at, and.... yeah.

I'll stick to the original plan and see how my editing methods change as I become comfortable with it. Maybe I'll go through and break it into chapters first before properly reading it, to make myself feel better. Once I start hopefully I'll just be able to edit and won't have to worry about the philosophy of it.

I'll keep you updated on my progress and wavering mental status when I begin. For now, I'm just letting myself enjoy the temporary reprieve and get other stuff like schoolwork done(like finally deciding how I am preparing for my AP tests) as I get psyched up for it. I'm honestly really excited for the next step.

Problems I'm Thinking About:
-chapters
-general suckage
-character consistency
-what is the title going to be??

End of Book One

11:35 PM 4/20/2013

It's done.

I just finished the first complete draft of my first manuscript. Ever.

Hold on, let me do math for a second...

It's been 536 days since I started.

I can't believe this.

Final Word Count: 191,169

Now I'm going to go surf the internet and grin like an idiot until I come down from this high and can go to sleep. Goodnight, everyone.

Tomorrow I'll start planning the edits.

Sweating

I've been sitting on my bed all day trying to get these last two scenes out. Two. Two more sentences in my outline. I've been listening to classical music and Walls by Benton Paul-things that I've been waiting to pull up and use for these very scenes to set the mood. I'm so close.

I've been writing about the last night in this story for two days now, and I'm losing my mind with it. I can't get a fast word count out because I'm so flitty and excited, but hopefully what I am writing is decent. I also keep having to go back through earlier parts of the story to remind myself of certain characters that haven't been present for a while.

The suspense is killing me. By this time tomorrow I could have written a book.

-fidgets-

Back to writing now. I'll let you know when I get there.

Current Word Count: 188,992

On Style

Looking through my sketches, a lot of them are just character designs- my sketchbook is filled with people, as that's what I usually like to draw. Here's some pulled from my sketchbook that show how my characters tend to dress.

I call this dapper gentleman Simon Tylor[subject to change]. He's a minor character, but he was escorting the main character to a ball, so I drew him to get out of a rut when I wrote that part last July. In this fancier getup I decided to draw most of my inspiration from seventeenth century styles. Seventeenth century has since been where I get the basic shape for most male characters, but I'll never be comfortable enough with those tights so it's been modernized somewhat. Women's styles in the story I usually create drawing from Renaissance art.

On the left is a Renaissance girl, not one of my characters, but a sketch that shows what I have in the back of my mind designing the women. I modernize their outfits to my liking a bit as well. The story isn't technically in a different time period, just removed from ours and lacking an industrial revolution since hey, magic. On the right is another design, not taken strictly from the Renaissance, but also relevant to the styles in my book.

I realize that what the characters are wearing isn't of the utmost importance, but I'm very visual and it's part of how I immerse myself in the world. I draw to make it real to me and to make me able to see the characters and how they would interact and move within a scene and with others. And let's face it, I like pretty dresses.

I hope y'all liked the drawings!

Current Word Count: 187,767

Last Panic

I've had yet another unproductive week. I'm kind of stuck at this one point because I feel it might not fit into the story well, even though it was in my original outline. I've decided to write it anyway to give myself the option to take it out when I edit, but it's really awkward and hard to write when I'm constantly doubting myself. I'm also afraid writing something really awkward might mess me up for the ending scenes, which are supposed to be really nice and heart-warming and fun and I'm sooo excited to write them. Part of this is probably nerves- the procrastinator in me is freaking out that I might actually finish something and is stomping on the brakes, but I'll push through. -dramatic music-

I just went through all my sketchbooks from the past couple years and pulled anything slightly related to the story, which was surprisingly little-eleven sketches. One of which Picasa somehow shrunk down to one blue pixel, so I'll have to upload it again. The amount of things I've irreparably screwed up by hitting the wrong button is too large to count. (also why I have my manuscript saved online and in three other places)

So here's one- From a moment in the prologue. But believe me this character comes into play later as well. Just much, much later.

 Yes, that one is missing a finger. It'll all make sense later. Eventually.

Current Word Count: 183,793

Character Sketches

These are four stylized character profiles from a while ago. Bear with me-I really cannot draw older people well, which is why the bottom right is so strange looking. Will learn.

From left to right, top to bottom: Main character Elle, Queen Daniella, Officer Daryn, and Advisor Darius.
More sketches to come, once I charge my camera and stop being lazy. (ha)
I'm now realizing how old these are and thinking I might redo them. We'll see.

Also, I haven't written that much due to a huge project this week. I ended up presenting the thing in the school auditorium and it was quite a trial. Glad it's over.

Current Word Count: 183,686

The End! Kindofsortofnotreallyyet

Good news for anyone interested in NaNoWriMo- "Camp NaNoWriMo" begins today! I'll put it up on the links list, I actually didn't know when it began until logging onto Facebook a minute ago. It's just like the November run, it seems, only for April.
Speaking of which, April is National Poetry Month. I have at least one friend participating in a Poetry Month challenge, and she'll be writing a poem every day, and I think posting it on her tumblr blog. I'll link to that as well, I guess; it's called Misused Words. I'm not much of a poet myself, but I think my English Lit teacher is planning to have our class do something.

As for my own story, I know I've said this before (kind of) but I'm almost done with my first draft. Seriously; I only have the final showdown and then the resolution, and I'm incredibly pumped. My word count is severely behind schedule, but seeing as I'm so close missing my Easter deadline wasn't that disappointing. I'm waiting until I'm actually done before setting a deadline for the edits, but I think I might shoot for my graduation this June-a deadline that is probably wishful thinking, as I know I left myself a lot of work in editing.

In other news about my personal life I just recently sent my first deposit in to my College of choice! This means, for those not "in the know" about American colleges, that the first check has been mailed and I am, upon the check's arrival to the school, officially enrolled for the coming Fall. I'm very excited as I love the school I chose and their art department is amazing. I know less about their English department, but it's a very well-known school and I doubt I'll be disappointed based on what I've seen thus far. I can't wait to be immersed in what I love- both the subjects and the process of learning. I plan on a double major in Studio Art and whatever Writing major they have (the terminology changes for each institution and I forget theirs at the moment). I've also been playing recently with the idea of minoring in History as well. We'll see, I suppose. But all this is very invigorating, and I feel that teenage sense of stagnation lifting finally.

Current Word Count: 179,654
[for now Blogger doesn't seem to be letting me add links to the list so they're http://misusedwords.tumblr.com and http://campnanowrimo.org]